Growers’ Friends

There are many growers’ friends in Mother Nature, and today we’re going to talk about plants that can some way be beneficial to your cannabis grow; Mother Nature presents us with a world full of predators and pray, parasites and symbiotic living beings that help cannabis plants grow strong.

In areas where there’s a tendency to find spider mites and aphids then an extremely useful plants could be lupine; these plants are extremely colorful and eye-catching in the summer, and form part of the legume family, plants that are capable of converting nitrogen in the air into molecules available for living organisms to consume in the soil; this means that having these plants near your grow makes for extra nitrogen in the soil for your plants, meaning that spider mites and aphids will be drawn away from your plants rather than towards them.

For white flies or white spider mites you can also plant marigold, carnations or ornamental tobacco plants. This last one is extremely toxic but useful in keeping white flies away. They’re pretty easy to grow but also quite ugly; with some pruning and watering they can look prettier, but honestly you don’t want them to look pretty rather than actually protect your grow.

Tagetes (like marigold) also have another function; as a repellent for nematodes and as an indication that an insect infestation is coming. It’s not really known why, but for some reason plagues will attack tagetes before any other plant. It can easily move from that plant to others, but you can easily detect the insects before they move to get rid of them before they get close to your cannabis. Nematodes are parasites that are found in soil and can get into your plants roots; after 20-30 days they begin laying eggs and seriously damaging the roots, which means a much lower yield. Along with tagetes, certain types of carnations can also be used as a repellent.

When in doubt, nasturtiums are also used as a repellent for various kinds of insects. These plants are creepers and have nice and vibrant flowers, and can also be used to hide your grow. Due to the fact that it’s a creeping plant it can easily hide your plants from prying eyes, using some sort of structure to create a green wall of nasturtium as well as a natural insect repellent. Along with this plant, beans and peas make for a perfect repellant trio against aphids, and beans and peas also naturally fertilize soil.

Two of the most annoying infestations for any grower are worms and snails. To get rid of snails you can simply use ash from a fire, sprinkled around the plants that you want to protect from snails and slugs. For worms you can use wormwood, which is one of the few plants that can repel butterflies and their annoying worm larva, alongside catnip which is known to be a sort of cannabis for cats.

If you add some magnolias to your garden then you can also prevent fungi attacks thanks to the spores that these plants release; the spores limit the appearance of fungi and can even completely get rid of it. This means that apart from disguising some of the cannabis smell, it will also defend your plants from fungi attacks.

These are some of the plants that you can combine with your outdoor grow, so get started for next year’s grow and you’ll have some amazingly protected plants!

Author: Fabio Inga
Translator: Ciara Murphy